Knowledge

Question

This piglix contains articles or sub-piglix about Knowledge

Answer 1

Monopolies of knowledge

The Canadian economic historian Harold Innis developed the concept of monopolies of knowledge in his later writings on communications.

Innis gave no precise definition of the term, but did suggest that he was extending the concept of monopoly in the field of economics to knowledge in general. Monopolies of knowledge arise when ruling classes maintain their political power through their control of key communications technologies. An example of this occurs in ancient Egypt where a complex writing system conferred a monopoly of knowledge on literate priests and scribes. Mastering the art of writing and reading required long periods of apprenticeship and instruction, confining knowledge to this powerful class.

This theory suggests that monopolies of knowledge gradually suppress new ways of thinking. Entrenched hierarchies become increasingly rigid and out of touch with social realities. Challenges to elite power are often likely to arise on the margins of society. The arts, for example, are often seen as a means of escape from the sterility of conformist thought.

Innis's warnings about monopolies of knowledge take on particular urgency in the years immediately preceding his death in 1952. In his later writings, he argued that industrialization and mass media had led to the mechanization of a culture in which more personal forms of oral communication were radically devalued. "Reading is quicker than listening," Innis wrote in 1948. "The printing press and the radio address the world instead of the individual."

When discussing the monopolies of knowledge, Innis focuses much of his concern on the United States, where he feared that mass-circulation newspapers and magazines along with privately owned broadcasting networks had undermined independent thought and local cultures and rendered audiences passive in the face of what he calls the "vast monopolies of communication".James W. Carey notes that Innis worried about the centralized control of information and entertainment by advertising-driven media. "The very existence of a commodity such as 'information' and an institution called 'media' make each other necessary," Carey writes. "More people spend more time dependent on the journalist, the publisher, and the program director. Every week they wait for Time [magazine]."

In order to fashion his concept of monopolies of knowledge, Innis drew on several fields of study, including economics, history, communications and technology.

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Answer 2

Multidisciplinarity

A multidisciplinary approach involves drawing appropriately from multiple academic disciplines to redefine problems outside normal boundaries and reach solutions based on a new understanding of complex situations. One widely used application of this approach is in health care, where people are often looked after by a multidisciplinary team that aims to address their complex clinical and nursing needs.

Historically, the first practical use of the multidisciplinary approach was during World War II by what became known as the military–industrial complex. Notably, the Lockheed Aircraft Company set up its own special projects operation—nicknamed the Skunk Works—in 1943 to develop the XP-80 jet fighter in just 143 days.

In the 1960s and 1970s, the multidisciplinary approach was successfully employed in the UK by architects, engineers, and quantity surveyors working together on major public-sector construction projects and, together with planners, sociologists, geographers, and economists, on overseas regional and urban planning projects. Three London-based professional practices led the field: Ove Arup & Partners, Colin Buchanan & Partners, and Robert Matthew Johnson-Marshall & Partners (RMJM).

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Answer 3

Mutual knowledge (logic)

Mutual knowledge is a fundamental concept about information in game theory, (epistemic) logic, and epistemology. An event is mutual knowledge if all agents know that the event occurred. However, mutual knowledge by itself implies nothing about what agents know about other agents' knowledge: i.e. it is possible that an event is mutual knowledge but that each agent is unaware that the other agents know it has occurred.Common knowledge is a related but stronger notion; any event that is common knowledge is also mutual knowledge.

The philosopher Stephen Schiffer, in his book Meaning, developed a notion he called "mutual knowledge" which functions quite similarly to David K. Lewis's "common knowledge".

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Answer 4

Network of practice

Network of practice (often abbreviated as NoP) is a concept originated by John Seely Brown and Paul Duguid. This concept, related to the work on communities of practice by Jean Lave and Etienne Wenger, refers to the overall set of various types of informal, emergent social networks that facilitate information exchange between individuals with practice-related goals. In other words, networks of practice range from communities of practice where learning occurs to electronic networks of practice (often referred to as virtual or electronic communities).

To further define the concept, first the term network implies a set of individuals who are connected through social relationships, whether they be strong or weak. Terms such as community tend to denote a stronger form of relationship, but networks refer to all networks of social relationships, be they weak or strong. Second, the term practice represents the substrate that connects individuals in their networks. The principal ideas are that practice implies the actions of individuals and groups when conducting their work, e.g., the practice of software engineers, journalists, educators, etc., and that practice involves interaction among individuals.

What distinguishes a network of practice from other networks is that the primary reason for the emergence of relationships within a network of practice is that individuals interact through information exchange in order to perform their work, asking for and sharing knowledge with each other. A network of practice can be distinguished from other networks that emerge due to other factors, such as interests in common hobbies or discussing sports while taking the same bus to work, etc. Finally, practice need not necessarily be restricted to include those within one occupation or functional discipline. Rather it may include individuals from a variety of occupations; thus, the term, practice, is more appropriate than others such as occupation.

As indicated above, networks of practice incorporate a range of informal, emergent networks, from communities of practice to electronic networks of practice. In line with Lave & Wenger's original work (1991), Brown & Duguid propose that communities of practice are a localized and specialized subset of networks of practice, typically consisting of strong ties linking individuals engaged in a shared practice who typically interact in face-to-face situations. At the opposite end of the spectrum are electronic networks of practice, which are often referred to as virtual or electronic communities and consisting of weak ties. In electronic networks of practice, individuals may never get to know one another or meet face-to-face, and they generally coordinate through means such as blogs, electronic mailing lists, or bulletin boards.

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Answer 5

Noogony

Noogony is a general term for any theory of knowledge that attempts to explain the origin of concepts in the human mind by considering sense or a posteriori data as solely relevant.

The word was used, famously, by Kant in his Critique of Pure Reason to refer to what he understood to be Locke's account of the origin of concepts. While Kant himself maintained that some concepts, e.g. cause and effect, did not arise from experience, he took Locke to be suggesting that all concepts came from experience.

Historically, Kant presents a caricature of Locke's position, not a completely accurate account of Locke's epistemology. Locke's actual theory of knowledge was more subtle than Kant seems to render it in his Critique. As Guyer/Wood note in their edition of the Critique:

Presumably Kant here has in mind Locke's claim that sensation and reflection are the two sources of all our ideas, and is understanding Locke's reflection to be reflection on sensation only. This would be a misunderstanding of Locke, since Locke says that we get simple ideas from reflection on the "operations of our own Mind," a doctrine which is actually a precursor to Kant's view that the laws of our own intuition and thinking furnish the forms of knowledge to be added to the empirical contents furnished by sensation, although of course Locke did not go very far in developing this doctrine; in particular, he did not see that mathematics and logic could be used as sources of information about the operations of the mind.

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Answer 6

Noology

Noology or noölogy derives from the ancient Greek words νοῦς, nous or "mind" and λόγος, logos. Noology thus outlines a systematic study and organization of everything dealing with knowing and knowledge. It is also used to describe the science of intellectual phenomena. It is the study of images of thought, their emergence, their genealogy, and their creation.

In the Critique of Pure Reason, Immanuel Kant uses "noology" synonymously with rationalism, distinguishing it from empiricism:

[Philosophers have differed from each other with] respect to the origin of pure rational knowledge, and as to whether it is derived from experience, or has its origin independently of experience, in reason. Aristotle may be considered as the head of the empiricists, Plato of the noologists. Locke, who in modern times followed Aristotle, and Leibniz, who followed Plato (though at a sufficient distance from his mystical system), have not been able to bring this dispute to any conclusion.

The Spanish philosopher Xavier Zubiri developed his own notion of noology.

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Answer 7

Nous

Nous (British: /ˈnaʊs/; US: /ˈnuːs/), sometimes equated to intellect or intelligence, is a philosophical term for the faculty of the human mind which is described in classical philosophy as necessary for understanding what is true or real. The three commonly used philosophical terms are from Greek, or νόος, and Latin and respectively. To describe the activity of this faculty, apart from verbs based on "understanding", the word "intellection" is sometimes used in philosophical contexts, and the Greek words noēsis and noein are sometimes also used. This activity is understood in a similar way, at least in some contexts, to the modern concept intuition.

In philosophy, common English translations include "understanding" and "mind"; or sometimes "thought" or "reason" (in the sense of that which reasons, not the activity of reasoning). It is also often described as something equivalent to perception except that it works within the mind ("the mind's eye"). It has been suggested that the basic meaning is something like "awareness". In colloquial British English, nous also denotes "good sense", which is close to one everyday meaning it had in Ancient Greece.

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Answer 8

Numeracy

Numeracy is the ability to reason and to apply simple numerical concepts. Basic numeracy skills consist of comprehending fundamental arithmetics like addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division. For example, if one can understand simple mathematical equations such as, 2 + 2 = 4, then one would be considered possessing at least basic numeric knowledge. Substantial aspects of numeracy also include number sense, operation sense, computation, measurement, geometry, probability and statistics. A numerically literate person can manage and respond to the mathematical demands of life.

By contrast, innumeracy (the lack of numeracy) can have a negative impact. Numeracy has an influence on career decisions, and risk perception towards health decisions. For example, innumeracy distorts risk perception towards health decisions and may negatively affect economic choices. "Greater numeracy has been associated with reduced susceptibility to framing effects, less influence of nonnumerical information such as mood states, and greater sensitivity to different levels of numerical risk".

Humans have evolved to mentally represent numbers in two major ways from observation (not formal math). These representations are often thought to be innate (see Numerical cognition), to be shared across human cultures, to be common to multiple species, and not to be the result of individual learning or cultural transmission. They are:

Approximate representations of numerical magnitude imply that one can relatively estimate and comprehend an amount if the number is large (see Approximate number system). For example, one experiment showed children and adults arrays of many dots. After briefly observinging them, both groups could accurately estimate the approximate number of dots. However, distinguishing differences between large numbers of dots proved to be more challenging.

Precise representations of distinct individuals demonstrate that people are more accurate in estimating amounts and distinguishing differences when the numbers are relatively small (see Subitizing). For example, in one experiment, an experimenter presented an infant with two piles of crackers, one with two crackers the other with three. The experimenter then covered each pile with a cup. When allowed to choose a cup, the infant always chose the cup with more crackers because the infant could distinguish the difference.

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Answer 9

Object pairing

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Answer 10

Obscurantism

Obscurantism (/ɒbˈskjʊərənˌtɪzəm, əb-/ and /ˌɒbskjʊˈræntɪzəm/) is the practice of deliberately preventing the facts of some subject matter from becoming known. There are two, historical and intellectual denotations of Obscurantism: (1) the deliberate restriction of knowledge—opposition to disseminating knowledge; and, (2) deliberate obscurity—an abstruse style (as in literature and art) characterized by deliberate vagueness. Therefore, an obscurantist is someone who actively opposes enlightenment and the consequent social reform, a type of anti-intellectual.

The term obscurantism derives from the title of the 16th-century satire Epistolæ Obscurorum Virorum (1515–19, Letters of Obscure Men), that was based upon the intellectual dispute between the German humanist Johann Reuchlin and the monk Johannes Pfefferkorn of the Dominican Order, about whether or not all Jewish books should be burned as un-Christian heresy. Earlier, in 1509, the monk Pfefferkorn had obtained permission from Maximilian I, Holy Roman Emperor (1486–1519), to burn all copies of the Talmud (Jewish law and Jewish ethics) known to be in the Holy Roman Empire (AD 926–1806); the Letters of Obscure Men satirized the Dominican arguments for burning "un–Christian" works.

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